OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A young Norwegian who became a global hacker hero by writing and distributing a program to crack DVD security codes appears to have struck again, this time against Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes online music service.

Jon Lech Johansen, 19, faces a new trial that starts Tuesday after prosecutors appealed his January acquittal on charges that he violated Norway's data break-in laws with his DeCSS program for DVDs.

Last Friday, a new security-cracking program called QTFairUse was posted -- along with the message "So sue me" -- on a Web site for which Johansen is listed as the registrant, or owner.

The new program circumvents iTunes' anti-copying program, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding, by legally opening and playing a protected music file in QuickTime, but then, essentially, draining the unprotected music data into a new and parallel file.

I think it would be the kid has skill, but I think the quality plays a part in it also. /me thinks back to article in CPU magazine about someone defeating a major record companies anti-piracy protection by simply holding down the shift key.

And the DeCSS was helped by a dvd distributor (i think) leaving their key available on the disk. And now this seems (at face value) like simply playing the stream out into a file rather than defeating the protection directly.